FROM THE SURGICAL WARD TO THE POLITICAL FIELD: REFLECTIONS ON THE LIFE & WORKS OF PROFESSOR ASRAT Woldeyes (1928-1998) By Assefa Negash, M.D. Amsterdam, Holland, March 1, 1997 I - Biography and Profile of Professor Asrat -------------------------------------------------- Professor Asrat Woldeyes was born in Adddis Ababa, on June 20, 1928. When he was barely three years old, his family moved to the south eastern Ethiopian town of Dire Dawa (1). He was an eight year old boy when Italian Fascist occupation forces of Mussolini invaded Ethiopia. Following the attempt on the life of the Italian fascist general Grazianni in Addis Abeba on that fateful day of 19 February 1937, his father, Ato Weldeyes Altaye, was captured and brutally murdered along with thousands of other civilians and patriotic Ethiopians by the invading Italian fascist forces and their Eritrean mercenaries. His grandfather, Kegnazmatch Tsige Werede Werk, was one of the Ethiopian patriots who was deported 2 to Italy and stayed there for three and half years along many other Ethiopian resistance fighters. As if the unfortunate death of his father was not enough, the future surgeon was struck by bouts of another misfortune i.e. the loss of his mother W/o Beself Yewalu Tsige, who died of bereavement caused by the untimely and brutal death of her husband. In spite of having been struck by a paroxysm of traumatic events at such prime age, the future surgeon diligently struggled on to find his bearing and maintain his gait through the tumult and insecurity created by the sudden loss of his beloved parents at such youthful age when he needed their emotional support and parental guidance. Following the defeat of the Italian fascist occupation forces in 1941, the future surgeon came to Addis Ababa to pursue his education. In 1942 he joined the then prestigious Tafari Mekonnen School. He was an outstanding student and in 1943 he was rewarded a camera for having been the best student of the school in that academic year. From Teferi Mekonen school, he was sent to Egypt to pursue his education at Victoria college. Subsequently he was sent to UK where he joined the Medical Faculty of Edinburgh University and studied medicine. He was the 42nd student from among the Ethiopian students that were sent abroad in the post-liberation period. Untempted or untitillated by the glitter and glamour of western life, he immediately returned to his native country upon completion of his medical studies in 1956. After having served his country as a general practitioner for 5 years in the former Prince Tsehai hospital of Addis Abeba, he returned to Edinburgh (Scotland) where he specialized in surgery. He was the first Ethiopian surgeon in the post-1941 period. Professor Asrat is the founding member of the Ethiopian Medical Association (EMA), Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Scotland (FRCS Edinburgh) and FRCS (England), member of the British Medical Association (BMA), the East African Surgical Association (EASA) and International College of Surgeons (USA). Since his return to his beloved country Ethiopia, Professor Asrat Woldeyes has given extraordinary medical service to his country both as a practicing physician and professor of surgery at the Addis Abeba University Medical Faculty in the establishment of which he played an important role. The medical school, in which he subsequently served as dean and professor of surgery, came into existence in 1965 as part of the Haile Selassie I university (as it was then called). II - The Disruption of Educational Development in the 1936-1941 Period- A Negative Legacy of Fascist Italys Occupation of Ethiopia. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fascist Italys occupation of Ethiopia deprived the country a generation of fledgling modern intellectuals. The few hundred Ethiopian intellectuals the country produced prior to 1935 were the primary targets of Italian fascist occupation forces and were accordingly hunted down and physically decimated for fear that they would serve as potential leaders of the resistance movement against Italy (2) . When the Italians left Ethiopia after 5 years of unsuccessful occupation, there was no trace of Ethiopian intellectual elite to man or run the modern administrative machinery and shoulder the responsibility of reconstructing the war-ravaged country. Ethiopia had to wait 12 years after liberation before the first graduated nurses appeared on the scene and wait another 14 years (after liberation) before the first Ethiopian medical doctor (professor Asrat Woldeyes) has to appear on the scene (3). He was one of the first educated Ethiopians to appear on the scene in a country where the manpower vacuum created due to the unfortunate, if outrageous, extermination of Ethiopias few intellectuals by Italian fascists and their 100,000 strong Eritrean (4) bandas (as these soldiers of fortune are called by Ethiopian patriots) or askaris between 1936-1941 meant that Ethiopia has to start ex nihilo trying to produce anew its educated elite. It also meant a painful, if intolerable, dependence on expatriates during the two decades following the liberation of Ethiopia. Expatriates had to devise plans and set up priorities for Ethiopia about which they knew or cared to know little. This surrender of decision making process to expatriates has had many untoward or negative effects on a developing nations life like that of Ethiopia. It was these foreign experts, a good number of whom had no concern for the interest of Ethiopia, which decided what was good or bad for Ethiopia (5). More often than not, it was the views of these omniscient expatriate experts which had an overriding role or sway in shaping the national developmental policies and setting priorities of Ethiopia. Perhaps nowhere was the ill-advised policies of these omniscient international experts and advisers so evident as in the area of Ethiopias public health problems. These experts advised Emperor Haile Sellases government on the non advisability and impracticality of establishing a medical school in Ethiopia. Of course any sane person can understand the implications of such advice. It implies not being able to produce nationals locally who can best solve their countrys problem head-on. It implies a humiliating and continued dependence on expatriate medical doctors who could not even directly communicate with the Ethiopian people they are meant to serve due to the language and cultural barrier such an encounter would entail. In a field like medicine, the medical professionals knowledge and mastery of the language, culture and social background of his/her would-be patient remains to be an important asset in understanding, diagnosing and treating this patient. The few Ethiopian professionals like professor Asrat had to fight hard to overcome these obstacles that were being put on their way by foreign expatriates who tried to block or delay the establishment of a medical school in Ethiopia. III - Service as a Medical Practioneer and Professor of Surgery ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Professor Asrat vigorously struggled along with his few Ethiopian colleagues to create the first medical school in the country. This medical school came into being in 1965. And since its opening, the school of medicine has produced hundreds of medical graduates. Thanks to the effort of medical professionals like professor Asrat and his colleagues such as professors Ededmariam Tsega, Paulos Quanaa, Nebiyat Teferi, Demisse Habte, etc the school of medicine has begun to locally train various medical specialists in such fields as Surgery, Internal medicine, Gynaecology and Obstetrics, Ophthalmology and Paediatrics. This is an achievement we owe primarily to people like Professor Asrat and his few colleagues who have dedicated their time to create such fine national institutions that can serve the needs of their population. It is all the more surprising, though, that such national figure of extraordinary calibre has to be dismissed from the University along with 41 other senior lecturers and professors because of his political opinion. In present-day Ethiopia, where might becomes right; omnipotent ex-rebel leaders and misfits of society can become omniscient academics that can evaluate, dismiss and lay off at will independent-minded and incorrigible intellectuals. The present anti-intellectual campaign of the EPRDF government parallels that of fascist Italian period in its method , in its anti-Ethiopian goals and particularly in its Amhara overtones. in its derive and cruelty EPRDFS current action surpasses the anti-inntelectual campaign of the Chiness cultural revolution of Mao Tse Tung and Cambodians pol pot in that the latter two were motivated by Communist ideological infatuation (directed against Chinese and Cambodian intellectuals irrespective of their ethnic origin) while EPRDFs anti-intellectual campaign is motivated by an ethnic hatred directed against non-Tigrean Ethiopian intellectuals in general and Amhara intellectuals in particular. Until his outrageous dismissal from the Addis Abeba University medical school and teaching hospital in March 1993, Professor Asrat had served his country for 38 solid years. ======================================== Part Two will Continue ~~......If You Visit Moreshinfo you will have the hole article YoungAmharasfacebook
Posted on: Wed, 27 Nov 2013 11:51:20 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015